


Autumn Leaves

by Glinda



Category: Doctor Who (Big Finish Audio)
Genre: Autumn, Community: dw_femslash, F/F, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-07
Updated: 2011-11-07
Packaged: 2017-10-28 14:13:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 920
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/308707
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Glinda/pseuds/Glinda
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Important cultural experiences are afoot, London swinging is just one of them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Autumn Leaves

**Author's Note:**

  * For [neveralarch](https://archiveofourown.org/users/neveralarch/gifts).



> Many thanks to significantowl for beta services. A belated pinch-hit for neveralarch in the dw_femslash ficathon. I took them to London in the sixties, hoping for shenanigans, but they decided they had their own plans... I hope you enjoy and sorry it's late.

“You know, given all the problems the Doctor had landing us in the Swinging Sixties, I feel we should be having some sort of appropriate cultural experience! Not that I don’t like standing around in parks, but it’s kind of chilly if you hadn’t noticed. Important cultural experiences are happening only a couple of Tube stops away,” comments Peri.

“On the plus side, if the Doctor wasn’t just making excuses for his terrible steering, then this year is both a hot spot for alien invasions and he’s already stopped them all, so at least we’ll have some peace and quiet,” responds Erimem absently still engrossed in the sight before her.

“Good thing too, contemporary fashions aren’t particularly conducive to stopping alien invasions,” says Peri, gesturing at the pair of fabulous PVC knee-high boots she’d found in the TARDIS wardrobe.

“Mmm,” agrees Erimem vaguely. “You still haven’t answered my question; what is this?”

There’s something slightly incongruous about standing on the edge of a London park, in the middle of the Swinging Sixties, with an Egyptian almost-Pharaoh. Erimem’s rapt fascination with the frosted leaves overhanging their path, fuzzy gloves forsaken so that she can test the texture with bare skin, only adds to the surrealness. Peri’s inner botanist supplies the tree’s Latin name and genus with only a little prompting, alongside everything she ever learning about cycles of tree growth, but none of those things really answer Erimem’s question.

“It’s Autumn,” she says instead, gesturing at everything around them, “where I grew up we call it Fall…” She trails off, lost in thought, never having really thought much about why Fall was called Fall. She’d always presumed it was to do with that being when the leaves fell but she didn’t actually know.

“Because that’s when the leaves fall?” Asks Erimem breaking into her thoughts, holding out a specimen that she has just rescued from her own hair.

“I guess so,” she says taking the leaf from her friend before confessing, “I should probably find out at some point.”

Erimem’s laughter is light and welcome when it comes, even if she is giving Peri her ‘people of the future are strange’ look.

By Peri’s reckoning she must have been to London a dozen times growing up, sometimes staying for a week or so, other times just passing through on her way to somewhere else. She’s certainly seen all four seasons there and while she’s sure it’s probably quite pretty in the snow, her experience of London any time after September and before May has always been cold, dull grey weather and dampness that seems to seep into her bones. However, she must confess that today is different. It is undeniably, teeth-chatteringly cold but it’s a crisp, bright cold makes her feel more awake than she has in weeks. The sky is the kind of vivid blue that combines with the brilliant sunshine to create the illusion of summer in photographs when it’s actually several degrees below freezing. The leaves still clinging to their trees stand out vividly against the sky, slightly unreal like an almost-but-not-quite-perfect special effect.

London is full of art galleries and stunning fashions and historic architecture, and it will all still be there tomorrow. This morning the leaves beneath her feet crunch with that perfect crispness that never lasts and there is a whole park full of trees and dappled light. She offers her gloved hand to Erimem who takes it with her own bare and chilled one.

“Come on, I’ve thought of an important cultural experience you need to have right now,” she insists pulling Erimem towards a particularly promising pile, just out of sight of the passing pedestrians.

~

By all rights they should be freezing cold lying among the frosted debris of their leaf fight, but Peri feels rather flushed and warm, and from the high colour on Erimem’s cheeks she’s probably feeling much the same.

“Peri?” Erimem asks, breaking the contented silence at last “Do important cultural experiences often take place in parks in your culture?”

“Occasionally. Though on the strength of today I think more of them should,” Peri replies.

The silence stretches comfortably between them. In the quiet, Peri can feel her elevated heart rate slowing back to normal and with it her awareness of the coldness of the ground below them grows. She turns her head to suggest they move, only to find her companion already observing her intently. There’s something about that look that always makes her want to kiss Erimem soundly, which, Peri reflects as she gives into the impulse, is probably a large part of why Erimem looks at her like that so often. Eventually they draw apart and Erimem raises a curious eyebrow at Peri.

“Is jumping and rolling in piles of leaves really an important cultural right of passage?” Erimem asks laughter colouring her voice and hinting at her opinion on the matter.

“Of course it is!” Peri insists. She looks away for a moment to compose her features before looking coyly at her friend through her eyelashes, before confessing “When you’re, like, eight.”

Erimem crows triumphantly at her and bombards her with fistfuls of leaves as Peri dissolves into helpless laughter.

~

Somewhere above them aliens are plotting the destruction of the Earth and soon the pair will have to come up with brave and cunning plans to stop them. But for now there is a cold, crisp Earth day, leaves to be jumped on and the promise of hot chocolate when they return to the TARDIS.


End file.
